World Without Sanity
by SSJ Leia
Summary: Caris x Godwyn, horrible crack pairing, with some Merthin-bashing. Not to be taken seriously. Read at your own risk!
1. Bad Romance

**Disclaimer and Author's Note: **I'm not Ken Follett. Thank your lucky stars. Written because I need a break from more serious stuff.

---

The day our story begins, Caris and Merthin were reclining, naked, in their isolated forest glade, their toes submerged in the slow-moving stream while birds chirped love-songs in the swaying branches above. Caris's eyes were glazed over and her mouth half-open, but it was not because of the perfect pleasure Merthin had just given her. It was because he had started talking about architecture again.

"Now the trick, of course," he was saying, "is to make sure all the forces acting upon the bridge are in equilibrium, such that – "

"Merthin – "

" – neither the compression acting on the top portion of the beam nor the tension acting on the bottom overpowers the beam's ability to hold its shape. And according to Hooke's Law, if I could know it – "

"Merthin, I'm sorry; I just don't honestly give half a damn."

"Oh," he said, looking a little disappointed. "Well I thought you wanted to talk. Should we just make love again?"

"I'd rather not." Caris sighed. Merthin had returned from Florence not long ago with his bratty little daughter Lolla, and he and Caris had been messing around – secretly of course, as she was a nun – ever since. A year ago, she would have been overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of being with Merthin again, but lately she had noticed herself becoming weary of their trysts.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know...I..." It wouldn't hurt to tell the truth. "I guess I'm bored."

"Oh, well...should we try it somewhere else? I bet we could find another of these idyllic glades."

"It's not the location."

"Well?"

"I don't know, Merthin, it may be that you don't really have much of a personality."

"What do you mean? I'm tenacious, fair-minded, intelligent, and ahead of my time – exactly like you. We're a perfect match."

"That's just it. We're Mr. and Mrs. Gary Stu, Merthin."

"Aren't they the bakers?"

"I mean we're _too_ perfect."

Merthin's blue eyes sparkled with confusion. "Is that possible?"

"If you had a few flaws – like you were a conniving son-of-a-bitch now and then, and you didn't pine over me and follow me around like a lost puppy – things might be a little more interesting."

"Oh. You…you want me to slap you around a bit?"

She sighed. "No, Merthin."

They made unsatisfying love again, and then Caris donned her habit and returned to the priory, as she had to do some nun thing or other.

---

Roughly twelve hours later, at half-past one in the morning, she was writhing in throes of pleasure on the floor of the cathedral.

The whole thing had started about three weeks ago, not long after the nuns had received Bishop Henri's delayed response to their complaint about Godwyn stealing the nunnery's money. The bishop had decided not to do anything about it. Godwyn, in his smug, sanctimonious way, had delivered a sermon about the importance of generosity, and Caris had been possessed by the urgent desire to strike him over the head with one of Merthin's hammers. She had decided to settle for at least chewing him out, and had cornered him behind the cathedral when no one else was around. Somehow, berating him had turned into something else entirely. Caris wasn't usually one to act on her more bestial emotions, and Godwyn certainly wasn't, but nevertheless their mutual hatred had chosen to manifest itself this time in a frenetic and passionate embrace. Every night since then they had met in secret in the darkness of one of the furthest corners of the cathedral. Usually they wouldn't speak. There wasn't any need for it. This time, though, she felt the urge to say something.

"Godwyn, we need to stop this."

"Why?"

She had rehearsed this in her head all day. She was going to express how wrong this was on so many multidimensional levels – how it had started as an innocent thing, just for kicks, a break from the terrible monotony and enforced chastity of nunnery life, but how it had become something more troubling, a _distraction_ from Merthin, who was clearly meant to be her true love, how she had started to look forward to their midnight meetings in a way she didn't want to. But in her post-coital befuddlement the only thing that made it out of her mouth was, "this is incest."

"It's the fourteenth century, and we're cousins. It's entirely legitimate."

"All right, fine. But I have Merthin now."

"He only came back to you because his wife is dead. That shows true devotion, doesn't it?"

Caris liked Godwyn much better when he wasn't speaking. Every time he opened his mouth, she felt like punching it. "I'm saying that this can't go on. What if we're discovered?"

That was a genuine concern. In fact, was probably only due to the general stupidity of the population of Kingsbridge that no one yet suspected anything was up. Even Philemon, who followed Godwyn around like a baby goose imprinted on its mother, never realized where the prior slipped off every night. And Merthin, who was by far the most intelligent man in the town, was too used to Caris giving him the cold shoulder to suspect anything was different. But things could change. One slip-up was all it would take. And then…

"You know exactly what would happen," Caris continued. "You would blame the whole thing on me and probably have me hanged for enchanting you with some kind of heathen spell."

Godwyn looked thoughtful. "Yes, I could do that."

It took a great act of will not to hit him. "That's why this needs to end now."

"All right, then." It was probably better this way, to be honest. What they were doing _was_ a sin. But if Godwyn was good at anything, it was justifying things to himself. He had come to terms with this business by telling himself it was Caris who had started it – that was actually true – so if either of them would burn in hell it would surely be her, it was a welcome release from the pressures of being prior, and perhaps, in some roundabout, unfathomable way, it was God's will. It was easiest to think of things that way. In reality, Caris probably fulfilled some deep sort of existential need, possibly connected in some way to an unconscious conflict with his mother, but that escaped him entirely. He had never been a particularly introspective man.

What need he fulfilled in Caris was similarly incomprehensible. Godwyn had never understood women at all. For a long time that had been unproblematic, since, as a monk, he was not supposed to get within ten feet of one. But now things were different. Women, he realized with some chagrin, were a little bit like God. It was impossible to understand why they did what they did, but one had to have faith that, on some invisible level, there was a method to it.

"Good," said Caris briskly. "That's settled. Goodnight."

They both left.

The next night, they were both back.

---

TBC, maybe.


	2. Boys Boys Boys, and Girls

**Author's Note: **I have problems.

---

Things carried on in that fashion for several more weeks.

Then, one moonlit night as she was skulking off to the cathedral, Caris ran into an obstacle in the form of Mair.

"Hello, Sister Caris," she said calmly, and the tone of her voice, coupled with the silhouetting glow of the moonlight, imparted an air of uncanny creepiness to her.

"Mair!" exclaimed Caris, pronouncing it "maya," – not "mare", like we Americans. "H-Hello…"

"What are you doing out here? It's past our curfew."

"Since when have I respected the rules, Mair?"

"That's true." Mair winked. "How about we break a few together…if you know what I mean?"

"Mair, I only fooled around with you because no one had touched me in nine years and I was desperate. That, and I wanted to prove to myself I was a modern, liberated, proto-Enlightenment woman who wasn't afraid to kiss a girl. But I really _don't_ swing that way. I'm sorry."

Bitterness flashed in Mair's otherwise soft and angelic face. "All right, fine. But I feel sorry for Merthin."

"What?"

"Well it's not _him_ you're sneaking off to."

"How do you know?"

"You always meet him in that clearing in the forest. I know cause I spy on you two."

"Jesus, Mair!"

"Don't break Merthin's heart like you broke mine." And she blew Caris a kiss, then drifted away like a pretty phantom.

Caris sighed and continued on her path. She couldn't understand why people found her so irresistable. She was plain-looking, and yet now she had the attention of two men and a woman. It was probably because she was so smart and good-hearted and feisty and independent. And at least she wasn't downright dog-ugly, like Gwenda.

Godwyn wasn't waiting for her when she arrived at the cathedral. He showed up about a quarter hour later, looking irritated. "Philemon," he explained.

"Oh."

"That man can't even go to the latrine without me."

"Well, I ran into Mair, myself."

"Mair? Oh, the lesbo."

"We need to start being more careful. She's suspicious now. Maybe we should go somewhere else."

"Well…I'd say we could go to my palace, but I don't allow women and other lesser beings in there."

His stupid palace. "That's great, Godwyn. I'm so glad _our_ money was well spent."

"What would you have done with it?"

"You know damn well we needed a new hospital, to keep the sick and the well separated."

"Why would you want to do that?" asked Godwyn, bemused. "It's better to put the sick and the well together, so that the sick can be comforted, and the well can see firsthand what happens to people who displease God. It's even better if the sick cough and bleed on them a little, to really drive home the point."

Godwyn was being his stubborn, myopic self again, and to Caris's horror it was turning her on. She quickly forgot all about being cautious. "Say something else."

"Illness is caused by an imbalance of humors in the body."

Caris swooned.

"One must cut and bleed the sick in order to cure them."

Caris moaned.

"The world is flat – and I don't mean that in Thomas Friedman's sense – and the sun and all the planets circle the Earth."

It was too much for Caris. Blazing with lust, she seized him in a manic embrace, and they had sex in a fashion that Ken Follett would have described in minute, porno-quality detail. And it was surpisingly good, considering neither of them could remember the last time they'd bathed.

---

Caris was returning to the nun's quarters, still trembling from lust and shame, when she ran smack into Sister Elizabeth. After picking herself up off the ground and rubbing her nose, she regarded her rival warily.

"You've got a secret, Sister Caris," the prettier girl said.

"Oh?" the uglier girl replied, trying to appear unconcerned.

"Out in the middle of the night? It's obvious. You were _with_ someone."

"Maybe I sleepwalk," said Caris, thinking quickly. "In fact, maybe I'm sleeping now. You wouldn't know it, because I talk in my sleep as well, and I'm quite cogent."

Elizabeth glared daggers. Ever since Caris had stolen Merthin away, she had hated the witch with a passion. She despised Caris's intelligence, her overconfidence, her inflated ego, the holier-than-thou air she managed despite clearly having no interest in religion. Unconsciously, of course, Elizabeth was tormented by her own personal insecurities and her sense of inadequacy as a female, but all that was pushed deep down into never-accessed layers of gray matter, just below her Electra Complex and above her fear of personal inexistence. But we've wandered from the narrative. If we had time, I'd show you some edible mushrooms that grow along this path.

"I'm going to find out what you're doing," said Elizabeth, glaring rapiers this time. "And when I tell Mother Cecilia, she'll definitely make _me_ sub-prioress."

"Good luck with that," said Caris, affecting calmness. She just barely managed to refrain from adding, _bitch._

"Maybe I'll tell Prior Godwyn, too. He trusts me, you know. I know him pretty well."

_But not in the Biblical sense_, Caris almost said. "You do that."

"I will," snapped Elizabeth, glaring a whole Arabian scimitar. "Goodnight, _Sister_ Caris."

Elizabeth stalked away, and Caris was finally able to go to bed.

Eight minutes later, the sun was up and she had to do some morning nun's stuff.

Caris sighed as she got dressed. Both Mair and Elizabeth were suspicious now. She would have to be much more careful if she wanted this affair to continue. It might be better for both of them if she cut things off now. She didn't much care what might happen to Godwyn if they were found out, but she didn't want to hurt Merthin, or damage her reputation as an upstanding, asexual nun. She resolved to tell Godwyn tonight that things were over.

She hoped she wasn't kidding herself.


	3. Love Game

**A/N: **Happy Valentines Day. ^^ Little longer chapter – the Gwenda part was fun. By the way, are there really _no other_ fanfics in English for W.W.E. or Pillars of the Earth? Seriously? If you know of any, let me know.

**---**

Caris sighed. Then she realized she'd been doing a lot of sighing lately, so she converted it to a glower. She'd been distracted all day, composing in her mind the words she would use to break things off with Godwyn. It had so preoccupied her that she'd spilled a carton of goat dung, gave the wrong poultice to a patient, and slapped Merthin when he'd asked her if she'd like to go on a picnic. But now, waiting in the dark alcove of the cathedral, she was ready. She knew exactly how she would phrase it.

_Godwyn, we've had a lot of fun, but at this point the risks have come to outweigh the benefits. One has to be calculating about these things_. _Several people are suspicious, and you know how fast rumors can spread in this town. You ought to – you've started some yourself. So, for the last time, farewell. Here – have these blueberries I picked for you as a remembrance of our…_Not love, certainly. Affections? Not quite. _Enjoyments._

But Godwyn came in, and he spoke before Caris could begin.

"Caris, we've had a lot of fun, but at this point the risks have come to outweigh the benefits."

Her jaw dropped.

"One has to be calculating about these things," he continued. "Several people are suspicious, and I know how fast rumors can spread in this town. I ought to – I've started some myself. So, for the last time, farewell."

She stared for a moment, dumbstruck. "What about the blueberries?"

"What?"

"Nevermind," she said, thrusting the basket of berries into his hands. He had stolen her words. That was just like Godwyn. _She_ was supposed to be the one to break up, not him. She was an independent woman, and no one could tell her with whom she could or could not have relations. Besides, men were supposed to find her irresistible. How could it be that one was spurning her? Was _this _what poor Merthin had experienced all those years?

"Will you be all right?" asked Godwyn.

"Of course I will. I'm not some dependent, weepy little maiden. And I hate you, in any case."

"That's good," was all he said, as though a problem had been settled.

"I don't understand," she said, resenting the darkness for masking her glare. "You were never worried about the risks before."

"No one was suspicious before. Now that bipolar psycho-bitch Elizabeth seems to have discovered you sneak out at night – she told me as much – and Philemon asked me where _I _went last night. Philemon is too much of an idiot to put two and two together – he'd probably come up with five even if he tried – but others might manage it. It doesn't matter for you, but I can't jeopardize my position as prior."

"Wait, it doesn't matter for me? I could be expelled from the nunnery!"

"Well you never wanted to be a nun anyway."

"But I'm inexplicably rising up in the ranks!"

"You're a woman. How high could you possibly rise?"

She clenched a fist. "Your sexism is _not_ arousing right now. I'm Guestmaster – whatever the hell that is – and I could be prioress someday!"

"Well I don't think I could let that happen," said Godwyn.

"Why not?"

"First, because it would mean I would have to interact with you quite a bit more and even invite you to my palace from time to time, which might weaken my resolve. Second, and probably more importantly, because you're always getting in my way and I think you're a complete bitch."

"Oh, drop dead of the plague, Godwyn!" she exclaimed, and pushed past him out of the cathedral.

She stomped her way back to the nuns' dormitory, so irate she feared she would pass out before reaching her bed.

She hated him.

She always had, really. What was so surprising about that? He had always frustrated, irritated and exasperated her, and she ought to be glad to be free of him. But if that were the case, why was she so angry she felt as if she would attack the next person to cross her path?

Unfortunately, it was Mother Cecilia. Caris slugged her.

---

She spent the next day in a horrible funk. She belittled her inferiors in the nunnery, insulted patients, deliberately amputated the wrong toe off one wounded man, and savagely kicked Godwyn's black-and-white cat so hard it flew thirty feet. Then she spent half an hour or so trying to beat that record.

"The hell is wrong with you?" asked Godwyn himself at one point, when tales of her psychotic behavior reached him.

"Nothing at all, _Father Prior._ Why don't you go fuck yourself?" she replied, and he steered clear of her the rest of the day.

Merthin tried to cheer her up the only way he knew how – by asking her to come see the new house he was designing on Leper Island. She literally tried to bite him.

By evening, no one would come within twenty feet of her.

She spent until midnight arguing with herself over whether to go to the cathedral. Godwyn might have cracked, after all. He might be waiting for her again. If he weren't, she would feel lower than dirt, of course, but the more she thought about it the more she convinced herself he _must_ be. Caris, whose only experience with men had heretofore been Merthin, couldn't help but assume that all of them pined over women and returned to them again and again with infinite patience, like stray dogs that had been fed too many times. It was amazing Godwyn had even held out this long.

At half past twelve, she slipped out of the nun's dormitory and crept along the path to the cathedral. This was the time when, normally, he would meet her in the alcove. She sat down in the dark and waited. She would mock him for his weakness, and then _she_ could break up with _him_ proper, and everything would be all right again and she'd be able to stop thinking about him.

An hour passed.

She hated him.

Another hour passed.

She wanted to kill him.

She was so incensed she entirely forgot that at three o'clock everyone came to the cathedral for Matins, whatever the fuck that was. So when finally she heard footsteps, she got up and brushed the dust off her cloak, preparing to act as if she had been there only five minutes, and tried to turn the smile that had soldered itself onto her face into a look of mocking triumph.

But it was just goddamn Sister Elizabeth.

"Ah, Sister Caris!" the newcomer said in a voice as sweet as rotten fruit. "You're up rather early. May I ask who you're here with?"

"It's 'with whom are you here,'" said Caris. "Dumbass. And no one. I'm alone."

Elizabeth looked like a pretty cat that had cornered a mouse. "What are you doing, pray tell?"

"None of your business."

"I think you're waiting for someone. Though..." She glanced at the sky out the window, which was already periwinkle. "He must have stood you up this time."

"Leave me alone."

"I told Mother Cecilia," said Elizabeth in a mocking, singsong tone, and Caris was strikingly reminded of her older sister Alice. "She said she already knows what you do with Merthin. She won't do anything about it. She's got a soft spot for you."

_Not now that I've given her a shiner_, thought Caris with a little regret.

Elizabeth continued. "So I went and told Father Godwyn."

Caris bit back a spiteful laugh. "What did he say?"

"That he's not surprised, because you're a witch and possibly possessed by Satan, and he would hang you if he could."

"Well, tell him – since you seem to be so _close_ to him – that I'd rather be a witch than a narrow-minded, stereotypical religious ignoramus who, as nothing more than the embodiment of anti-scientific fanaticism and backward feudal ideology, is holding a one-way ticket to the proverbial Dustbin of History." Caris was proud of herself for that one, especially given that it wasn't even a proverb yet.

"I'll quote you," said Elizabeth smiling with malevolent pride, and Caris felt a chill go down her spine. She realized at that moment that Godwyn had the potential to become the new Merthin: Elizabeth prized her closeness to him, and if she ever found out that he, too, preferred Caris, Elizabeth might well try to murder her.

Caris gave her a sour scowl and left the cathedral before the others arrived for prayer. She was tired of dealing with horrible people. She needed someone who would understand and give her sympathy, or at least not scorn.

She needed a girls' night out with her best, if ugliest, friend.

---

Gwenda was skinny and malnourished from years of fruitless peasant labor, and her bony, sunken face complemented her uneven features to make her even fuglier. Though she was younger than Caris, she now looked at least ten years older. But she was happy, for all that, because she had the man of her dreams.

"What's wrong, Caris?" she needled sympathetically, as she ravenously gulped down the flagon of ale Caris had bought her. "Is something going on with Merthin?"

"No," Caris, who next to Gwenda felt like Aphrodite, sighed.

"Are you sure? Trouble in the sack, maybe?"

"Gwenda! No. It's...it's not Merthin."

"OH!" she squealed. "Caris, are you having an affair!?"

"Quiet down!" There weren't many people in the tavern tonight, and most of them were too drunk to hear anything but their own ramblings, but she didn't want to take any chances. "It's not an affair – Merthin and I aren't even married."

"But you're cheating on him."

"It's not cheating – we're not really even together."

"But wouldn't you call Merthin your boyfriend?"

"Not really, no."

They spent the next twenty minutes debating whether or not Caris's activity constituted cheating, whether Merthin was indeed her boyfriend, and what color of nail polish tended to dry the fastest.

"Who is it?" Gwenda finally demanded. "Who are you seeing?"

"No one, now. We broke it off."

"Who _was_ it?"

Caris avoided her friend's eyes. "I can't tell you."

"You _bitch_," spat Gwenda, her eyes narrowing, making her look like a disfigured hairless cat. "It's Wulfric, isn't it?"

"Jesus, Gwenda, no!"

"Well I wouldn't be surprised. He's so much better-looking than Merthin."

"If you like that rugged bucolic type."

"What type do _you_ like?"

_Evil asshole priest, apparently, _thought Caris. "It's better if I don't tell you. Please understand."

"I won't tell anyone," Gwenda cajoled. "And I promise I won't judge you. Come on, Caris. We're best friends, aren't we?"

"O-Okay." Caris drew a breath, steeling herself. "It was, uh..." She leaned close to Gwenda's ear and told her in the quietest whisper possible.

"Are you completely batshit crazy!? Why'd you have to choose the worst person in the whole town?"

"Quiet! And he's not the _worst_. I could have chosen your slimy, gangly brother!"

"At least then he wouldn't be _related_ to you!" Gwenda shook her head. "What on Earth is wrong with you, Caris? You're never satisfied with what you have. I'm perfectly happy working in the fields dawn til dusk with my handsome farmer-boy and dying at the age of about forty, after popping out a brood of similarly doomed kids. _You _always go against the grain. You want to break the rules."

"Well I'm not the only one to blame. It's not like I had to give him a _love potion."_

"Oh, great, bring that up. I didn't need it, by the way."

"Yeah – all you had to do was break your back eighteen hours a day in the fields for no pay, and wait for the girl he _really_ wanted to marry someone else, leaving you as the only available consolation prize."

"At least I'm in love with a good honest man, not a lying, manipulative rat who tried to kill me."

"You just hate Godwyn because he wouldn't stop your father from trading you for a cow. I think he should have stopped it too, but only because the cow got sold short."

Gwenda slapped her.

Caris slapped her back.

"Catfight!" a drunk shouted as they leapt off their stools. Gwenda punched Caris in the face, hoping to leave a good mark so that she wouldn't be the ugly one anymore, and Caris head-butted Gwenda in her distended abdomen. Then someone doused them in beer, and soon they were grappling with each other on the tavern floor.

So much for sympathy.

---

"Caris," said Gwenda later, after they'd been arrested by John Constable and were settling in for a night in the stocks, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have judged you. Opposites do attract, after all. And who doesn't want a bad boy?"

"Forget it," said Caris, still reeking of ale. "I'm sorry about the cow comment."

"If you really love Godwyn –"

"Hate him."

"Okay, if you really…_hate_ him, then I think you ought to get him back. We women have to fight for what we want, because trust me – men don't honestly give a damn."

"Thanks, Gwenda," Caris said glumly.

"Sorry about the uppercut, too, by the way."

"That's okay," said Caris, wishing she could move her hand to rub her smarting jaw. "And I'm sure you won't really need that tooth of yours."

---

The sun was well up before they were let out.

Gwenda made her way back to Wigleigh, and Caris slowly and stiffly began to walk back to the nuns' dormitories. She looked like crap: her clothing stank, her beer-drenched hair had dried in gooey disheveled clumps, and Gwenda had confirmed her suspicions of a black eye before they'd parted.

"Don't you look lovely, Sister Caris," said a familiar voice.

She didn't turn to glare at him – mostly because her neck was too stiff. "Fuck off, Godwyn. You'd look like this too. I was in the stocks."

He stepped in front of her. "So I heard."

"And you didn't try to get me out?"

"That would have appeared suspicious."

She wanted to spit at him. "Oh, of course. Just get out of my way."

He stayed where he was. He was giving her an odd look, like derision mixed with pity mixed with something else, and it annoyed her.

"What do you want, to mock me more? Yes, I'm not the best in a fight, it turns out, but you should see Gwenda. Actually, with her it was kind of an improvement – "

"How have you been?" he asked. "I mean in general."

Something started to sting her eyes, but she quickly recovered. "Wonderful. Relieved. Liberated. The trees all look greener without you."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said simply, and Caris, forgetting how good a dissembler he was, took him at his word. She snapped.

"What the hell is the matter with you!? It's been _four days!_ Aren't you going to apologize and beg me to take you back!?"

"Why would _I_ ever do that? That's completely out of character."

"Because…because…" she struggled, but she realized he was right. And like a lugubrious, weak-willed, invertebrate maiden, her own last shreds of in-characterization snapped, and she started to cry.

He pulled her close.

"Godwyn," she sniffled between sobs, "I hate you. I'm sure of it. I've never felt this way about anyone before. I think I've always hated you, and I know now I always will. I've tried to ignore it but I can't; it's driving me mad."

"You think I don't hate you just as much?" he replied. "This has been hard for me too."

"I doubt it."

But it had. Godwyn couldn't talk about it, because his Y chromosome prevented him from being able to express feelings. Never having studied genetics, he tried his best. "I truly think you're the worst woman in the world."

"Really?"

"I never even knew what hate was before I met you."

She hugged him. "Shit," she sniffed, "this wasn't supposed to get all _fluffy."_

"That reminds me – I think my cat is dead."


	4. Speechless

**A/N: Never go off meds without discussing it with your primary care physician.**

---

The cat, unfortunately, turned out not to be dead. It walked with a limp and hated Caris with an immortal passion. Every time she came near it – which was frequently, now that they had moved their trysts to the prior's palace – it would attack her with the fury of a creature avenging the very honor of its species.

"Godwyn, get your effing cat off me," she demanded one early morning, when she had woken up with sixteen claws embedded in her face.

He pulled it off her, which was painful for both Caris and the cat, and threw the squalling thing out the window.

"I _hate_ cats," she complained, dabbing at her bleeding face with the pillowcase. "I'm a dog person."

"I'm sorry; I prefer cats."

"Of course. All villains do. Have you ever seen a villain with a dog?"

"Too high maintenance."

"I see. Less time for scheming." She peered out the window at the creature darting off like a demon into the pre-dawn darkness. She hoped it had used up one of its nine lives. "I truly hate that cat, though. I think I might even be allergic to it – I feel nauseous."

"Allergies don't cause nausea. They make you sneeze."

"Whatever, Doctor."

"All right; I'll keep it out of the house."

In the couple of weeks since their near break-up, things had become stabler. They had shifted their midnight meetings to Godwyn's house to avoid suspicion, now that Elizabeth had caught Caris in the cathedral. And before sneaking out, Caris had started piling straw under her blanket in the dormitory to form the semblance of a human shape. Both Elizabeth and Mair stopped bothering her; they must have assumed that whatever indecency had been going on had been discontinued.

The only problem was that Caris hadn't been feeling well. She was intermittently hit by waves of nausea, and had even vomited a couple of times. At first she was terrified that it was the plague, which had just hit the town, but it had lasted longer than five days, didn't seem to get any worse, and was not accompanied by purple blotches, bloody coughing, or any of that repulsive stuff. No; it was probably just the cat. That stupid, stupid cat; that awful little wretched monster…

And then realization socked her in the face.

"Oh…Christ on a fucking cracker."

"What?"

"I…I think…"

"_What?"_

But, like a tortured poet, she couldn't turn the words in her mind into voiced syllables. "I've got to go," she managed, and fled away.

_Women are insane, _Godwyn mused. It was no wonder their souls were worth less than men's.

---

"Gwenda," asked Caris the next day, sitting in her friend's dung-scented peasant hovel, "I need to ask you a personal question."

"Sure."

"How...how do you keep from having babies?"

"Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much –"

"I know how they're _made_. What I mean is – you've been sleeping with Wulfric for years, and you've only had two children. How did you manage that?"

"Oh, I've gotten pregnant dozens of times," said Gwenda proudly. "But I'm so malnourished I lost them all."

"Oh…"

"Caris, don't tell me you're –"

"I don't know. I…I think so."

Gwenda let out a shriek. "OMG…baby shower!"

"You couldn't afford to give me anything, Gwenda, and anyway that's the least of my problems."

"Whose is it? Merthin's or – "

That was the million dollar question. "I don't know."

"Have you told either of them?"

Caris shook her head.

"I've always been envious of you, Caris," said Gwenda introspectively. "But damn, girl – I'm glad I'm not in your shoes now."

"You don't even have shoes, Gwenda."

Gwenda looked down at her dirty, blistered feet and sighed.

Caris echoed her. "What am I going to do?"

"It's not so bad," said Gwenda. "Pregnancy's a bitch, but babies are wonderful. I bet you'll love being a mother."

"Don't make me laugh. I'm too independent. I can't be chained to some smelly, noisy, awful little thing that needs to drain its sustenance from me_._ If I wanted that, I'd just stick a leech on my leg and save myself nine months and forty pounds."

"Caris! You won't feel like that after it's born."

"Yes, I will."

"Well, you could give it away. Wulfric and I could raise it."

"I might be a neglectful mother, but I'm not downright cruel."

"Well, I'll still help you any way I can," said Gwenda, ignoring the jab.

"Thanks," said Caris unenthusiastically, in the tone of a condemned prisoner comforted by a priest.

"Hey, what will you name it?" asked Gwenda, her voice getting squealy and schoolgirlish again.

"No idea. Don't care."

"Come on, this is the fun part."

"Vomit-Inducing Parasitic Demon," suggested Caris. "Vom for short."

"Don't be mean. Ooh, it could be a cross between Merthin and Godwyn. Merthwyn!"

"Great, Gwenda."

"Oh, please cheer up, Caris. Have a drink."

So she drank Gwenda completely out of wine and ale, because it was the fourteenth century and no one knew any better.

---

"Godwyn," said Caris that night, still recovering from a horrible hangover.

"Won't you call me Father Prior?" he asked.

"That's a little creepy. Look, I…I've got to tell you something."

"Oh?"

She felt like her tongue had become wax; it folded and stuck against itself. "I, uh…I'm expecting."

He stared at her blankly. "Expecting what?"

"What do you think? The sort of thing women _expect_."

That didn't help. Women were so utterly esoteric, Godwyn thought. Heaven only knew what she wanted. "Flowers?"

"No!" She rubbed her brow in frustration. "I…I've got a bun in the oven."

"What kind of bun?"

"Not a real – I mean...I'm in a delicate condition."

"You look healthy to me."

"Are you listening? I killed the rabbit."

"For supper?"

"I'm in the _pudding club_."

"Are you planning some party?"

She buried her head in the pillow for a long moment. "Oh my God, you're an idiot," she said when she surfaced. "I've run out of euphemisms for pregnancy."

He blanched. _"How?"_

After his demonstration of ignorance, she wondered for a brief moment whether he actually didn't know. "It tends to happen to people."

"You mean you weren't…being careful about that?"

"How?"

"I don't know, using some magic spell or something?"

"For God's sake, you know damn well I'm not a witch!"

"Well you should have been doing _something!_"

"Why is it _my_ responsibility? The only person I could have gone to for something like that is Mattie Wise, whom _you_ scared away!"

"This can't come out," said Godwyn. "Literally or figuratively. It would ruin me."

"Oh really? I'm just thrilled about it. I'm really looking forward to inflating to the size of a cow."

"Wait a minute, how do you know whose it is? Maybe it's Merthin's."

"I…" She was sitting up now, her gaze fixed on the wall. She hadn't looked directly at him since her admission. "I doubt it."

"Why?" It was meant as a challenge, but the question came out a bit shaky. Godwyn had no idea how Caris knew she was pregnant. He assumed it was something women could detect with a kind of Satanic sixth sense, maybe a gift the snake had left Eve. With the same kind of intuition, he imagined they could probably ascertain the child's paternity.

"Well, he and I…we've lain together so many times, and it's never resulted in a baby before, except…well, never. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, in all sorts of places – "

He cut her off. "I see."

"So it could be his, but it's probably not."

"Can't you do what you did last time?"

"Last time…?" She finally turned to look at him, her eyes wide. "How did you know about – "

"It's a small town. Everyone does."

"Fine…right. Well, last time, I had someone to help me. I'll give you a hint. Her name starts with _Mattie_ and ends with _Wise."_

"Then there's only one thing to do," said Godwyn, staring at Caris as if the answer were self-evident.

"What?"

"You'll have to marry Merthin and pretend it's his. There's a chance it is, anyway."

"I don't want to marry Merthin! I don't want to marry _anyone_, ever!"

"That's lovely, Wonder Woman. But you don't have a choice."

She shook her head, flinching as it aggravated her headache. "But what'll I do when it's born and it doesn't look like him?"

"I look like you. It'll resemble you. Just say it got all your genes."

"Genes? It's the fourteenth fucking century, Godwyn. No one knows what the hell that means. Besides, I'm sure it'll inherit your selfish, manipulative personality, and that'll be more than sufficient to make its father obvious."

He grabbed her wrists. "Calm the hell down. There's nothing else we can do. You can't have a baby as a nun; you'll have to renounce your vows anyway."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tell the truth and take you down with me."

"I'd kill you," he said, and she had no doubt he meant it literally.

She pulled away from him in frustration, wishing she could kill the damn parasite with the strength of her resentment, or turn her bitterness into a knife to cut it away. "I can't leave the nunnery. I'm formally sentenced to death for witchcraft, remember?"

"Everyone's forgotten about that."

There was no way around it, Caris realized. It was over; that was that. She would have to live out the rest of her days in a state _worse_ than death – as a mother and wife. "All right, I'll do it," she snapped. "But don't expect to have any role at all in your child's upbringing."

"Obviously not. Until he becomes a monk, of course."

"He – or she– is not going to become a monk. He or she…they…_it_ will follow Merthin and become a carpenter. Or a wool merchant, like my father."

"No child of mine will be a petty artisan."

"Well it's not going to be a child of yours now, is it? Either you take full responsibility or you have no say at all."

"Responsibility? This is all _your_ fault."

"It takes two to tango, sweets. You're not innocent here."

"But you started it."

That _was_ true. Caris suddenly found herself at a loss for words. No matter what an asshole he was, that fact would always remain, to absolve him and incriminate her. Why _had _she started it, anyway? "And it's the biggest regret of my life," she said snappily, unable to come up with a better retort.

"Likewise." He didn't look as hurt as she had hoped he would. She wished she had his talent for indifference.

"Oh really? Why? You've gotten nothing but benefits out of all this. A good time, a baby you don't have to raise or even acknowledge, and me out of the nunnery, no longer threatening to become prioress. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was all part of some plot of yours."

"I'm not quite that clever."

"But it _did_ all work to your advantage."

"I suppose it did," said Godwyn coolly.

Caris feared she would start to cry again. She pinched her eyes shut tight, commanding her stupid, weak heart to stand firm. _Walk out_, she told herself. _Just walk out on the bastard_. "Well, goodbye then," she said in a voice just barely steady, like a glass threatening to overflow. "Unless you have anything else to say to me, and what in all likelihood is your future son or daughter."

"Not that I can think of."

She considered slapping him, but realized it would only reinforce feminine stereotypes. So she punched him in the eye instead.

As she was leaving the palace, the cat darted out of a dark corner like an arrow and sunk its fangs into her ankle.


	5. So Happy I Could Die

**A/N: I'm having too much fun with this. But I suppose that was the point. BTW, I recently found out there is a World Without End board game. I want that.**

---

As a nurse, Caris had seen dozens of women in various stages of pregnancy, and had even helped with a number of births, so she should have been familiar with what was to come. She herself had been pregnant once before. However, she was unprepared for this.

Pregnancy, as Gwenda had warned, was a bitch.

During the first few months, she was constantly crampy, bloated, and nauseated. She was on edge and in a permanently hellish mood, although what fraction of this was due to her physical condition, as opposed to her resentment of the baby's likely father, was hard to know. Most pregnant women were said to glow, but she did the opposite – she turned pallid, with shadows around her sunken, sleepless eyes. She cursed the damn parasite – as she called it – with every spare breath, and could literally feel it sucking away her independence and individuality.

Once, early on, she had tried falling down the stairs in hopes that it might take care of the problem. She had only ended up with a broken toe and an admonition from the nuns to be more careful in her "delicate condition."

Merthin, on the other hand, was on cloud nine. The had been married two weeks after her breakup with Godwyn, on a sickeningly lovely afternoon when the blithe, idiot sun was soaking the town with its happy energy. Godwyn had the nerve to come. Caris was so furious at him that she didn't notice how his eyes narrowed – just barely, almost imperceptibly – when she and Merthin kissed.

And so she started her life as Merthin's bride.

Merthin was sweet, and good, and smart, but he was a flat and flawless character, too smooth, a cardboard silhouette; he brought out nothing in her but her own flatness. He was the very incarnation of medieval progress, a proto-progressive, a perfect embodiment of the guild-defying, capitalism-embracing, Enlightment-harbigering, burgher agent of History. There was an appeal to him. But Caris, for whatever inexplicable reason, found herself drawn to the crumbling things that those like him were replacing – the weakening keystones, the mildewed corners, the people made irrelevant, the forces clinging spiderlike to the struggling years of the past, and whether she was morbid or just nostalgic, Godwyn, more than anyone else, seemed to symbolize all that. Merthin was Life and Godwyn was Death, and heaven only knew why she wanted the one more than the other. Were it several hundred years later, Freud might have made a comment about _Todestrieb._

But she hadn't spoken a word to Godwyn in months.

Meanwhile, she swelled up like a giant human blister. Every part of her was bloated and covered in stretch marks. It didn't help, either, that her stepdaughter – darling little Lolla – was a whiny, noisy, needy brat who happily kicked, bit, screamed at, and threw her food at her surrogate mother. Caris had horrible, delightful fantasies of tying the girl's foot to a brick and dropping her off her father's bridge. She couldn't work out how she'd explain it to Merthin, though.

The worst was that she wasn't sure what to do with herself. She had become used to life as a nun; she had developed an ambition about it. She _would _have liked to have become prioress. Now, shackled to the home as a wife and mother, the best she could hope for was to beat Madge Webber in the annual Best Cupcake Competition. At least she'd have a good chance – Madge was currently grief-stricken because her husband and children had died of the plague, and it's hard to mix batter when one's eyes are a faucet. Caris was about halfway through her own batch when she remembered her abandoned dream of replacing old Mattie as a Wise Woman.

She made her way to Mattie's empty hut in the woods and spent the next week sweeping, cleaning, airing out, and stocking the place with ingredients from her pharmacy. She had forgotten many of Mattie's recipes, and she would have to do a good deal of experimentation, but she recalled enough to get herself started. She had found a vocation that would get her out of the kitchen, away from Merthin and Lolla, and engaged the kind of work that had always fulfilled her. Best of all, it would probably annoy Godwyn.

Her first patient was Gwenda.

"Gwenda!" said Caris, "you look nicer than usual. Did you change your hair?"

"No," said Gwenda. "There are boils all over my face. I have the plague."

"Oh, that's it."

"I'll probably survive," said Gwenda with conviction, "because I'm a central character. But can you give me anything to help with the vomiting and nausea? The monks and nuns aren't much comfort – they just keep praying and bleeding us."

Caris gave her an herbal potion.

"Thanks," Gwenda said, unconsciously picking at one of her boils. "How are you? How's little Merthwyn?"

"That's _not_ it's name. And how should I know? It's still in there, so I assume it's fine."

"Motherhood is a miracle, Caris. You should try to enjoy the process."

"I don't believe in miracles," said Caris flatly, and shoed Gwenda out the door.

The next person to come see her was Madge Webber.

"Please, give me something to kill myself," said the poor bereaved woman.

Caris sighed. "If I knew how to make _that_, I'd have checked out a long time ago."

---

Prior Godwyn, meanwhile, wasn't faring much better.

Never having been very introspective, he didn't recognize why he felt so irritable and downspirited. He blamed it on the plague. People were dropping like flies, and so far prayer, goat dung, bleeding, and cutting limbs off wasn't doing any good. The townsfolk were beginning to lose faith in the priory, and Godwyn hated the feeling of not being in control.

He insisted to himself that he had done the right thing by leaving Caris. The thought of her married to Merthin was somehow nauseating, but their relationship had become impossible. He couldn't have a child. It would be the scandal of the century and he would doubtless be forced out of his hard-earned – or hard-acquired, anyway – position. Plus, his sense of self-importance was bloated enough that he supposed the plague was God's punishment for his sins with Caris. So it was the only right course of action to cut things off for good.

And yet she kept drifting into his thoughts, waving at him from the corners of his eyes like a playful phantom. What was it about her? Hell, she wasn't even very pretty. He started to wonder if maybe she really was a witch, and had put him under an amorous spell. In any case, her memory was driving him effing insane.

"You all right, Father?" asked Philemon one day, after Godwyn had ended a sermon with, "we're all fucked. Amen."

"Fine," said Godwyn. He didn't like Philemon much, to be honest. The man was unctuous and conniving – kind of like him, but without the intelligence – and a complete bootlicker. But everyone needed minions.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," said Philemon oilily.

"What?"

"Why is it you let that witch, Caris, leave the nunnery without being executed?"

"I told you," said Godwyn, annoyed, "I didn't want her to become prioress. She's less of a threat now."

"But she could be dead," said Philemon slimily, "and then she'd be even less of one."

"Too much of a hassle," said Godwyn.

"She _is_ a witch, though," oozed Philemon. "Haven't you heard? She calls on the devil and brews Satanic potions in a little hut in the woods."

"Does she?"

"Yes, and patients are going to _her _instead of us. She's making a fool of you. If you ask me, I think you should have her hanged. Or beheaded. Or hanged and then beheaded, and then skinned and impaled on a post."

"You're a sick son-of-a-bitch, Philemon," said Godwyn. But then he realized it was the simple solution to all of his problems. If he made a scapegoat of Caris, he would be rid of her and her temptations, rid of the baby that might bear a troublesome resemblance to him, and presented with someone on whom to blame the plague, rekindling the trust of the desperate townspeople. Maybe a human sacrifice of this sort would even placate God. He felt something rising in his throat – pity or compassion or humanity? – but he swallowed it down and ignored it, as he always had. After all, he was a villain, and the hell if he was going to be changed by the sweet caresses of a woman. That would just be too stupidly cliché.

"Sounds like a plan," he said to Philemon, who glopped with anticipation.

---

Caris, now heavily pregnant, could hardly believe it when she was dragged into the courtroom. Godwyn was presiding, and the half the town that hadn't died of the plague was in attendance, desperate for some diversion from the stench of decaying human flesh.

"Caris _Builder_," said Godwyn, glancing at Merthin and stressing the surname with contempt, "you are sentenced to death by hanging."

"What the fuck?" said Caris. "For what?"

"Witchcraft, obviously."

"You can't just sentence me, asshole! I didn't even get a chance to defend myself!"

"We already had the trial years ago, remember? You were found guilty and sentenced to death, suspended as long as you were a nun. You renounced your vows, so now you die."

"This is nonsense!" shouted Merthin.

"No one's talking to you, carrot top."

"But she's my wife! And she's _pregnant_! You can't hang her when she's pregnant!"

Philemon spoke up gleefully. "It's clearly the child of Satan."

"That's right," said Caris, glaring straight at Godwyn. "I'll admit _that_."

"What?" asked Merthin.

Caris had the strong urge to reveal the child's likely father, but realized, to her despair, that she would rather die than confess having had a relationship with the bastard accusing her. Godwyn must have guessed as much.

"It's true!" shouted awful Sister Elizabeth from the crowd. "She used to sneak out at night all the time! And once, I caught her in the cathedral and no one was there! So it must have been an evil spirit."

The crowd gasped, impressed by her iron logic.

"I can't bear it!" shouted a feminine voice. Gwenda – who had, indeed, survived the plague – rushed forward out of the crowd. "It's Prior Godwyn's baby!"

"She's clearly mad," said Godwyn and Caris at the same time.

"No dogs allowed," said Philemon. "Someone remove her."

"Oh, for God's sake!" protested Gwenda. "Enough of these jabs at my appearance! Stop beating a dead horse."

Philemon was about to make a clever retort, something along the lines that Gwenda flattered herself with that metaphor, but she was dragged out by John Constable and he lost his chance.

"So, then," said Godwyn, looking at Caris, "back to you dying."

"I'll see you in hell," she hissed.

"I know," said Godwyn before he could stop himself.

"Now, wait just a minute," piped up poor Madge Webber, who still hadn't managed to die. "I don't care _whose _baby it is, and I don't care if she _is_ a witch. You can't just kill an innocent baby because of the wrongdoings of its mother. At least let her have the child first."

The crowd murmured their agreement.

"No," said Godwyn, and the townspeople, who were fickle as a weathervane, murmured their agreement again.

"The prior has spoken!" said Philemon. "Time to spill some blood!"

"Wait!" one more voice sounded. Caris's heart soared; it was Mother Cecilia, who had always defended her. "I can't overrule you, Father Prior," said the old woman, "but please think about what you're doing. Didn't Jesus teach us to have compassion, even for sinners?"

"Well, yes…"

"So can you practice what you preach? And would you turn the other cheek? Father, Father, Father help us. Send some guidance from above. 'Cause people got me, got me questioning, where is the love?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm not sure," said Mother Cecilia.

And court was adjourned.


	6. Monster

**A/N: Second-to-last chapter.**

**---**

It was all her fault.

Caris was furious at Godwyn, of course, but she realized as she marched her bloated self through the streets of Kingsbridge – a few steps ahead of the torch-bearing lynch mob – that the real culpability was hers.

Why hadn't she been happy with Merthin? Why hadn't she been willing to settle down, have a normal family, be a normal wife? Why hadn't she been like Gwenda? Or her sister Alice? No one had forced her to start her affair with Godwyn. It had been her choice. She had played with fire, and now she was being burned – literally. She kicked backwards at one of the townpeople, who had just jabbed his torch into her shoulders.

Caris would have felt more comfortable, prouder, more resigned to her fate, if she had at least known _why _she'd done it. But she couldn't explain her behavior. The causal spark was hidden, locked in some secret, repressed chamber of her brain that her conscious mind couldn't access. She thought back to her childhood, hoping the answer might lie there. She had always been a willful, ambitious little girl, who had wanted to grow up to be a doctor and help people. Instead, she'd become a sinful nun, an unwilling wife, a resentful mother-to-be, and now a condemned prisoner. Where had things gone awry? She knew that many people appealed to fate, or God's unknowable will, when they were unable to understand actions they'd taken. Caris didn't believe in God, but now she wondered whether there might be something to the notion of "fate." If the passions and drives that motivated people were beyond their conscious grasp, like unseen strings on a puppet, sometimes even working _against_ their personal will – was anyone really free? Or were they all just little spinning billiards, the pawns of some Aristotelian First Cause, a string of contingent actions stretching backward and forward to infinity?

But she was out of time to wax philosophical.

The macabre parade had reached Gallows Cross. There was a scaffold with a hangman's noose. Caris ascended it with the executioner. She felt calm enough, despite her doubts about the existence of an afterlife. No one could be sure, of course, but Caris had always felt quite certain there wasn't one. She would rot away, and wouldn't even be conscious to feel indignant about it. She would not join her mother and father in Heaven, to look down with angelic pity on her persecutors, nor would she wander the forest, a wailing ghost, to curse and haunt them. In a few moments, nothing would ever matter to her again. That causal spark, that mystery, whatever it was that had drawn her to Godwyn and ruined her, would cease to be. It was an odd prospect. But she couldn't imagine nonexistence. She could only remain in the moment. The only one she suddenly felt sorry for – odd though it was – was her unborn child.

Merthin and Gwenda were standing at the very back of the procession. They had both had to be restrained. Mair was weeping shrilly and obnoxiously. Elizabeth was smirking and standing close to Godwyn. Caris couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Do you have any last words?" asked the executioner.

Caris thought briefly. "Go fuck yourself," she ordered, to no one in particular – maybe to the universe. It seemed the only thing to say.

"Oh, Caris!" cried Merthin from the back of the crowd. "I'll follow you! I love you!"

"Please don't," she said, not certain what she was referring to.

"We must have a prayer," said the executioner.

Everyone looked to Godwyn.

But something odd was happening to the prior. He had felt fine throughout the court proceedings and the march to the gallows, but something had changed as Caris had started to ascend the steps. An unfamiliar feeling had crept into him. He couldn't make out what it was. It wasn't sorrow, although it was akin in some ways. It wasn't anger, though it was similarly unpleasant. And it wasn't anxiety, though it was close. Perhaps it was some subcategory of emotion he had never experienced? Godwyn had never understood much about emotions. His mother had told him they were something women had, kind of like petticoats and combs.

"Philemon," he whispered to the man beside him.

"Yes, Father Prior?"

"What do you call it when you feel like something's your fault?"

Philemon thought for a moment. "Pride?"

"No. It's a bad feeling."

Philemon thought again. "Pain?"

"No, it's more specific."

Philemon thought again. "A toothache?"

"You're fucking retarded. I mean it's a feeling as if…as if you've done something wrong and you're going to be punished."

"Oh!" Philemon brightened, remembering his abusive childhood. "Fear!"

That wasn't it either. But Godwyn realized everyone was looking at him, so he tried to ignore the mysterious sentiment. "What?"

"We need a prayer for the condemned," repeated the executioner.

"Don't bother," said Caris, rolling her eyes. "According to you I've already sold my soul to Satan; I doubt a prayer's going to save me."

Godwyn racked his brain, but he was so troubled he could only think of one Biblical passage. He cleared his throat. "Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.' And it was so."

There was a silence, half respectful and half confused.

"…Okay," said the executioner. "Let's get this party started, then."

He took the noose and reached to put it around Caris's neck.

Godywn cleared his throat again.

"Yes, Father Prior?" asked the executioner, who had no actual first name.

"Uh…" Godwyn thought quickly. "Shouldn't she have some last words?"

"She just did."

"Oh."

The executioner reached for the noose again.

"Uh…" said Godwyn.

"Yes, Father Prior?"

"Shouldn't we have a prayer?"

"We just did."

"Oh."

"For heaven's nonexistent sake!" cried Caris. "Just kill me!"

_Be calm_, Godwyn told himself. _Just stay still. Don't do anything. Don't move, and it will be over._

But at that moment, a crushed, strangled shred of humanity clawed its way up from near his brainstem where it had long been repressed. It gasped for air, then slapped him so hard he finally realized what the strange feeling was.

Guilt.

The executioner put the noose around Caris's neck, but he had not yet had time to tighten it when the floor of the platform cracked under Caris's inflated, eight-months pregnant weight and she crashed through, falling out of the loop of rope and landing with a thud on the ground below.

The townspeople gasped as if witnessing a miracle.

Two people rushed out of the crowd toward Caris. One was Merthin, who had struggled free of his restrainers. But the other, who had a good head start on him – in fact, he had started even before Caris had hit the ground – was Prior Godwyn.

He grabbed her, and held onto her like the Holy Grail.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Caris when she had recovered her breath.

"I don't know," said Godwyn sincerely.

"Get the fuck away from me! You just tried to kill me – again! You're a complete inhuman bastard!"

Godwyn spent a couple of moments in deep consideration. "I am," was his verdict. "At the same time, you're an entirely unbearable, stubborn, self-centered, anachronistic Mary Sue bitch. Merthin is too good for you. You deserve me."

The crowd was staring. Elizabeth looked horrified. Gwenda, on the contrary, had her hands folded and her head tilted to the side in an expression of romantic adoration.

"What the hell is this?" demanded Merthin, pushing himself between his wife and Godwyn.

"Shut up," said the monk.

"_You _shut up, and explain what's going on here!"

Caris was about to tell both of them to shut up, but her water broke. "Jesus H. Christ," she said, disgusted, "I just can't catch a break."

---

Caris wished desperately that she had been hanged. The agony she was experiencing now was a thousand times worse than a noose. Her impact with the ground had put her into premature labor, and contractions were coming fast. "Fucking stupid…poorly-constructed…platform," she hissed between gasps.

"Well, the problem with it," said Merthin compulsively, "is that the pillars on which it was resting weren't constructed exactly perpendicular to – "

"Shut…the…hell…up!"

"You'll be okay, Caris!" cheered Gwenda, who was crouching at her side to wipe the sweat from her face. "I've gone through this twice before. All the pain will be worth it when the little angel comes out."

"I'm not expecting any angel," Caris spat. "It's a little _demon_ and I think it's trying to disembowel me from the inside."

"Just breathe."

"Oh, is that all there is to it?" Caris snarled. "Unless we're talking nitrous oxide I don't think that's going to do any good."

"Is there a doctor here?" cried Merthin.

"He's a doctor," said Gwenda, pointing at Godwyn.

"I don't know about _women's_ issues," said Godwyn, disgusted.

Merthin, besides, was pulling him backward and away from Caris. "Don't touch her. You already almost killed her once."

"Twice now," Gwenda reminded them.

"Either get someone to help me," rasped Caris, convulsing in pain, "or take me back up there and hang me properly!"

"We could do that," said Philemon excitedly, but his sister kicked him.

"What about the nuns?" asked Gwenda, scanning the crowd.

"I can help, Caris!" called Mair, her face still streaked with tears. "I love you! Forget about these awful men – your baby can have two mommies!"

"I don't understand why we aren't killing her," said Elizabeth with a twisted, sadistic glare. "So the noose didn't work out. We've got pitchforks."

"How dare you?" screeched Mair.

"She's a witch!" rejoined Elizabeth.

"Don't call my wife a witch!" Merthin shouted. "Everyone get away from her! I'll help her. I'm her husband and it's my child."

"You think you can deliver a baby?" mocked Godwyn. "It's not like building a damn bridge."

"Well, it probably follows the same basic principles. Pressure and equilibrium. It's like when you have a brick jammed in somewhere and you have to pull it – "

"SHUT UP!" screamed Caris, as though in her death throes. "MERTHIN, YOU'RE ANNOYING – SHUT UP! GWENDA, YOU'RE UGLY – SHUT UP! MAIR, I'M NOT ATTRACTED TO YOU – SHUT UP! ELIZABETH, YOU'RE A BITCH – SHUT UP! AND GODWYN, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT – SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, GO TO HELL!"

Her curses were silenced by a final spasm of agonized pain, and she passed out.

When Caris regained consciousness a few minutes later, numb and dazed, she initially wondered whether she was dead. But no – Gwenda was there, holding something bundled in a cloak. It wriggled and whimpered in a strangely endearing way.

"It's a boy," said Gwenda brightly. She handed it to its disconcerted mother, who stared at its blunt and delicate little features.

"Well," said Caris weakly, "at least it had the decency to be cute."


	7. Nothing Else I Can Say

**A/N: And that's it. This was fun. When I read World Without End, I – for whatever reason – fell madly in love with Godwyn, so I suppose I had to get it out of my system. Please leave a review if you liked it. ^^**

---

Everyone was clustered around Caris and the infant. With the townspeople still bearing clubs and torches, the empty noose hanging from the broken gallows above, and the executioner standing at the ready a few feet away, it made for a very warped nativity scene.

The baby opened its eyes. They were bright green, with little flecks of more green. Its hair was light brown fuzz, the exact shade of Caris's – and everyone in her family. And on its cute little face was an expression of sanctimonious contempt.

Its parentage was more than obvious.

The father – no pun intended – of all awkward silences ensued. Everyone was staring at Godwyn, except for Caris, flushed with exertion and shame, who kept her gaze on the infant.

"Shall I fix the gallows, then?" asked the executioner at last.

"She clearly put poor Father Prior under a spell," said Elizabeth, glaring at Caris and the baby as if at a succubus and her offspring.

"No she didn't!" cried Merthin. "This obviously wasn't her fault. It must have been against her will. Did that son-of-a-bitch force himself on you, Caris?"

The thought of watching Godwyn hang was tempting, and Caris hesitated a moment just to scare him, but she was too exhausted to avoid the truth any longer. "No."

"See?" said Elizabeth. "She entranced him. Just like she did to you, Merthin."

"She never put me under a spell," Merthin shot back. "I just rejected you, because you're a complete slut."

"_I_ am?" Elizabeth retorted, her cheeks pink as the newborn's skin. "Am I the one who just had an illigitimate baby with my own _cousin?!" _She turned to Godwyn, swallowing her fury and struggling to sound more respectful. "Are you entranced, Father Prior?"

It was Godwyn's only possible defense. He hesitated, thinking it over. He could, potentially, convince the townspeople that Caris had bewitched him, and she would be put to death – for real this time. But his eyes strayed to the newborn in her arms. The thought of someone else – probably Merthin – raising his son, teaching him to be a petty _architect_, made him furious. He hadn't fought and swindled his way up the monastic hierarchy to watch his only child become a worldly artisan. It was for his son's sake that he would spare her. Yes. No other reason.

Really.

"No, Sister Elizabeth," he finally said with authority. "I'm not entranced. And if I were, how the hell would I be cognizant enough of my condition to admit to it? That's like asking someone if he's dead."

Elizabeth flushed. "Then why? What do you see in _her!? _She's smug, and irreligious, and plain!_"_

"I wish I knew."

"I'm beautiful! Why doesn't anyone like _me?_ What's wrong with _me_!?" Elizabeth sank to the ground and wept.

Mair joined her, her shrill, warbling cry making the baby whimper. "Oh, C-Caris, are you kidding me?" she blubbered. "I…I could understand you leaving me for Merthin…he's flawless…but for _Godwyn?_"

"Mair, for the hundredth time, I'm not into girls," said Caris. "I was just… experimenting. What about Elizabeth? She can't seem to attract men."

Mair and Elizabeth met each other's tear-filled eyes, and their hearts skipped a beat.

Merthin sighed, gazing at the child of his wife and his enemy. "Caris...why?"

"I don't know," she said honestly.

"Of all people..._all_ the men in Kingsbridge...you picked the one who hated you the most? The one you had the _least_ in common with – other than one-eighth of your DNA?"

"I'm sorry, Merthin."

"And you?" Merthin looked at Godwyn. "I thought you hated her."

"With a passion," said Godwyn.

"Then…what the fuck?"

"Opposites attract," suggested Gwenda.

"Yeah, when we're talking about effing magnets. Not people. If opposites really attracted, I'd have married Elfric." Behind him, Elizabeth and Mair had begun making out. He ignored the sound of their tear-wetted, smacking lips and continued. "How long has this been going on?"

"A while," admitted Caris.

"The whole time we've been together?"

"No! Just since you came back from Florence."

"Why should I believe you?"

"It's not as if _you've_ always been faithful," Caris retorted. She knew she had no right to be defensive, but she was tired beyond belief, had almost died, and had just been through more pain than she'd ever imagined a person could feel and still live – so she was feeling a little bitchy. "There was Griselda, Bessie Bell, Lady Phillipa – "

"That one hasn't even happened yet!"

"And oh, yes, your _first wife_."

"I married her because you kept rejecting me! I couldn't wait for you forever. Do you know what blueballs is?"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept stringing you along. I know now we're just not right for each other, Merthin."

"And you and your heartless, scheming, bastard cousin are?"

"Would people stop pointing out that we're related? We try not to think about it."

"I just don't understand," said Merthin, now looking more bewildered than angry. "He's completely horrible."

"Women find bad men appealing," explained Gwenda. "It's part of our evolutionary endowment."

"Seriously? Well…how about Philemon, then? He's bad. Why aren't all the women swooning over him?"

"He has no power," said Gwenda. "Women don't like subordinate suck-ups."

"Standing right here…" said Philemon.

"Then how about my brother Ralph?" Merthin continued. "He has power, and he's a complete bastard. Do you like him, Caris?"

Caris crinkled her nose. "No. He repulses me."

"See, he's _too_ bad," said Gwenda. "He has no redeeming qualities."

Merthin scratched his head. "So…women want men with power…but they don't want good men, or really bad men…what the hell do they want?"

"I know it seems complicated," said Gwenda sympathetically. "I can show you the associated equations in my PowerPoint presentation sometime."

"Forget it, I don't care," said Merthin. "I've been pining after her _twenty years_, and I'm not letting her go now. Caris, I can change! I can become a worse person for you! I'll be bad!"

"Bull," said Godwyn. "You've either got it or you don't."

"Shut up, you piece of – " Merthin started, but his words were cut off by a sneeze.

"Bless you," said Godwyn reflexively.

"Oh, fuck o– " Another sneeze.

Caris squinted at him. "Merthin…what's that on your neck?"

"What?"

She peered closer; there was a series of purplish, bruiselike blotches arrayed in a row just above his collarbone. "Merthin! You…you have the plague!"

He sneezed again and toppled to the ground.

"This is impossible!" Caris cried. "I thought you'd already had it and recovered! You can't get it again!"

"That was just a plot device," said Merthin, his voice suddenly weak. "The only people who can die from the plague are those who are either unimportant, or standing in the way of the protagonists. And right now…that's me."

"Oh, Merthin!"

"It came on incredibly quickly," observed Godwyn. "How odd."

Merthin had already begun coughing up blood. "Y-Yes…also very convenient…Must be that new bacterial strain…_Yersinia deusexmachinus_…"

Caris handed the baby to Gwenda. Still very weak, she managed to drag herself to the sick man's side. "Merthin, please don't die!"

"One can't…argue with…the natural laws…" he hacked. "I forgive you, Caris…" He glared at Godwyn. "But not _you_."

Caris stroked his face and sniffled. "I'll always love you…in a platonic way…"

"I know…" he rasped, a fountain of blood pouring from his mouth quite gratuitously. "Goodbye, cruel world. Without end."

And Merthin Builder died.

"Is anyone else an obstacle to our relationship?" asked Caris.

"No," chorused the townspeople, and fled away.

"What happens now?" asked Caris, taking the baby back from Gwenda, whose face had made it start to cry.

"I can't be prior anymore, obviously," said Godwyn in a resigned voice. "Philemon, you're prior."

"Sweet," said Philemon. "Does this mean I might get some action?"

"I doubt it."

Philemon sighed and followed after his new flock.

"Come on," said Gwenda to Elizabeth and Mair, who were still tongue-kissing. "Let's get this body out of here."

She and the besotted nuns carried Merthin back to Kingsbridge, and Caris and Godwyn were left alone with their lovechild – if that was the proper term.

"I'm a widow now," observed Caris.

"Shall we get married?" asked Godwyn dully, resigned. There was no way he could remain a monk – much less prior – now that the scandal was out.

"You don't have to," said Caris. "You could go somewhere else, some other town far away. You're ruthless enough to claw your way up to prior or bishop or whatever you want to be."

"I can't leave the baby with you," said Godwyn casually. "You'd raise it to be some atheistic wool merchant."

She looked away to hide her smile. The baby squirmed, and they looked down at it.

"He _is_ fairly cute," said Caris. "Perfectly formed, despite the inbreeding. Want to hold him?"

"I don't like babies," Godwyn started to say, but Caris shoved the swaddled thing into his arms, and his expression softened as he looked at it. "He has your eyes. Or mine."

"What should we name him? I've been calling him Parasite, but that would probably invite teasing."

Godwyn thought for a moment. "We could name him after Uncle Anthony."

"No, he was a dry, stuck-up bore. Let's name him Edmund, after my father."

"Your father wasn't even important enough to get a death scene. We should name him after my father."

"_Your_ father? What was his name?"

"I don't know." Godwyn thought again. "How about Adolphus, after the saint?"

"_Adolphus?_ It sounds like a kind of bacteria."

"It's pious."

"Over my dead body," said Caris, quickly adding, "Just an expression."

"Well, we can decide later. The more important problem is what to do now. We can't go back to Kingsbridge. I can't live there as a normal citizen. The shame would be unbearable."

At that moment, there came the sound of a heavenly choir, and a brilliant flash of white light made them cover their eyes and the baby squall in protest. They looked up, blinking, and gasped. An oddly familiar apparation stood before them, its body draped in angelic white and shimmering like sunlit vapor.

"Tom Builder!" cried Caris. "Is it you?"

"Yes, my perverted, incestuous descendants," said the ghost in a stately voice.

"You left a baby to die in the forest," said Godwyn, "and you still went to Heaven?"

"Shut your trap," said Tom.

"Please," said Caris, "tell us what to do."

"You will go to the Dagobah System," began Tom Builder, then coughed and cleared his throat. "You will go to the coast and board a ship to France," he resumed. "You will travel to Paris. And there, in fifteen generations, one of your descendants will build the greatest tower in all of Europe."

"Shit," said Godwyn under his breath, "an architect."

"We'll do it, Tom," said Caris. "Thank you!"

The specter began to fade.

"Wait!" called Caris. "Please tell me something. If I don't figure it out it'll bother me all my life."

"What is it?" asked Tom, growing more corporeal again.

"Why the hell do I love Godwyn?"

"Two reasons," replied the phantom. "First, you're a physician at heart, Caris; you've always had the urge to heal people and bring them back from the edge of death. Godwyn was an epic failure of a human being. He would have caused his own downfall. You've saved him from himself."

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" interrupted Godwyn.

"Second," said the phantom, not taking his hollow eyes from Caris, "and probably more disturbing, he bears a resemblence to your dead father, whom you have not and never will get over."

"Oh…" said Caris softly, her eyes wide. "That makes sense…"

"What about me, Mr . Omniscient?" asked Godwyn. "Why do I l-…" He paused, then forced himself on. "-Love her, or whatever?"

"I don't have a clue," said Tom Builder. "You're probably just really fucked up." And with that his form dissolved away.

"Hey," said Caris, looking at the baby, who had fallen asleep, lulled by the unearthly cadence of the ghost's voice. "That's what we'll name him. Tommy!"

Godwyn shrugged. "That's not bad."

He helped Caris to her feet. Suddenly a sniffling sound came from one of the bushes nearby. A little girl came out hesitantly, holding Godwyn's black cat.

"Lolla!" Caris had entirely forgotten about Merthin's daughter, who seemed less detestable now that she was an orphan. "Godwyn, shouldn't she come with us? I feel responsible – somehow – for what happened to her father."

Godwyn shrugged again. "Whatever you want." He was no longer in control of the situation, but strangely it didn't bother him. The burden of his status, of constantly having to plot and scheme and spy and worry about his enemies, had vanished. He felt at peace for the first time since he'd become a monk. _Christ_, he realized. _She_ has _saved me._

Caris kissed him, then extended a hand to the little girl, who reluctantly approached and took it. And with all loose ends tied up, the four of them, Lolla holding the cat and Tommy napping peacefully in Godwyn's arms, set off down the path away from Kingsbridge.

Oh, and Philemon totally died of the plague too. Because I hate him.

THE END


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